{"id":90180,"date":"2019-11-11T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T17:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/security\/blog\/\/?p=90180"},"modified":"2023-05-15T23:28:42","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T06:28:42","slug":"zero-trust-strategy-what-good-looks-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/security\/blog\/2019\/11\/11\/zero-trust-strategy-what-good-looks-like\/","title":{"rendered":"Zero Trust strategy\u2014what good looks like"},"content":{"rendered":"
Zero Trust has managed to both inspire and confuse the cybersecurity industry at the same time. A significant reason for the confusion is that Zero Trust isn\u2019t a specific technology, but a security strategy (and arguably the first formal strategy, as I recently heard Dr. Chase Cunningham, Principal Analyst at Forrester, aptly point out).<\/p>\n
Microsoft believes that the Zero Trust strategy should be woven throughout your organization\u2019s architectures, technology selections, operational processes, as well as the throughout the culture of your organization and mindset of your people.<\/p>\n
Zero Trust will build on many of your existing security investments, so you may already have made progress on this journey. Microsoft is publishing learnings and guidance from many perspectives to help organizations understand, anticipate, and manage the implications of this new strategy. This guidance will continue to grow as we learn more. A few highlights include:<\/p>\n
In previous posts of this series, we described Microsoft\u2019s vision for an optimal Zero Trust model<\/a> and the journey of our own IT<\/a> organization from a classic enterprise security to Zero Trust. Today, we focus on what a good strategy looks like and recommended prioritization (with a bit of history for context).<\/p>\n Zero Trust security continuously validates trustworthiness of each entity in your enterprise (identities, applications and services, devices) starting each with a trust level of zero.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The central challenge of cybersecurity is that the IT environment we defend is highly complex, leading security departments (often with limited budgets\/resources) to find efficient ways to mitigate risk of advanced, intelligent, and continuously evolving attackers.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Most enterprises started with the use of a \u201ctrusted enterprise network,\u201d but have since found fundamental limitations of that broad trust approach. This creates a natural pressure to remove the \u201cshortcut\u201d of a trusted enterprise network and do the hard work of measuring and acting on the trustworthiness of each entity.<\/p>\n The earliest coherent descriptions of the Zero Trust idea can be traced to proposals in the wake of the major wave of cybersecurity attacks. Beginning in the early 2000s, businesses and IT organizations were rocked by worms like ILOVEYOU, Nimda, and SQL Slammer. While painful, these experiences were a catalyst for positive security initiatives like Microsoft\u2019s Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) and began serious discussions on improving computer security. The strategy discussions during this timeframe formed into two main schools of thought\u2014network and identity:<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Microsoft ultimately recommends an approach that includes both<\/em> schools of thought that leverage the transformation of the cloud to mitigate risk spanning the modern assets and (multiple generations of) legacy technology in most enterprises.<\/p>\n Microsoft recommends rigorous prioritization of Zero Trust efforts to maximize security return on investment (ROI). This default prioritization is based on learnings from our experience, our customers, and others in the industry.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Zero Trust is a model that will ultimately be infused throughout your enterprise and should inform virtually all access decisions and interactions between systems.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Expanding on the three principles of Zero Trust from the Zero Trust vision paper<\/a>\u2014Verify Explicitly, Least Privilege Access, and Assume Breach\u2014the hallmarks of a good enterprise Zero Trust strategy include:<\/p>\n Over time, we expect Zero Trust will become accepted and commonplace where people simply learn it in \u201cSecurity 101\u201d (much like the least privilege principle today). Zero Trust is expected to evolve as we all become more comfortable with what this new normal entails and have ideas on how to optimize efficiency and address the attackers’ ongoing attempts to find a chink in the new armor.<\/p>\n \n Reach the optimal state in your Zero Trust journey.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Our next blog will discuss how to make Zero Trust real in your enterprise starting with technology available today, which you may already have deployed or have access to! In the meantime, bookmark the Security blog<\/a> to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity<\/a> for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zero Trust is a model that will ultimately be infused throughout your enterprise and should inform virtually all access decisions and interactions between systems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":90187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"content-type":[3662],"topic":[3673,3679,3689],"products":[],"threat-intelligence":[],"tags":[3822],"coauthors":[1906],"class_list":["post-90180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","content-type-news","topic-identity-and-access-management","topic-network-security","topic-zero-trust","tag-microsoft-security-insights"],"yoast_head":"\nEvolution of security strategy<\/h3>\n
Network or identity? Both (and more)!<\/h3>\n
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Prioritizing and planning Zero Trust<\/h3>\n
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What good looks like<\/h3>\n
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Into the future<\/h3>\n
Zero Trust<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t